6914/Spelunking in Symkaria: Pt 2

Spelunking in Symkaria: Pt 2
Date of Scene:	15 March 2019
Location:	Symkaria
Synopsis:	Silver Sablinova and Lara Croft escape the jaws of death in an ancient lost cavern!
Cast of Characters:	Silver Sable, Lara Croft

---

Silver Sable has posed:
LAST TIME

Silver Sablinova and Lara Croft were in Symkaria, looking for a rumor of a ruin recently found by LIDAR scanners. In a race against possible Latverian mercenaries, they rushed to the archaeological site to stake a claim first. The armed mercenaries disagreed, and a gunfight broke out. When all was done, Silver and Lara were left standing and entered the long-lost tomb of St. Symeon. Except it's not his tomb. It's the resting place of a Chrismary and perhaps the source of the legends of St. Symeon, who had such great faith in God that he walked unarmed in crowds with no fear of being harmed.

Silver Sable has posed:
Silver doesn't drop down into the underground cistern quite yet. She does balk as Lara cuts herself, but cuts off a cry of protest when the woman is unharmed. "A moment. I'm securing our rear flank with an explosive device," Sable tells Lara from above.

She secures a grenade and a tripwire just inside the passage into the tomb. Dark enough that a lazy observer won't see it. She leaves a little mark near the outside doorframe as well, something her people will recognize.

With that she checks her gear and drops down after Lara, landing with a flex of her knees and a grunt. The mercenary leader eyes Lara as she stalks over, then lifts the archaeologist's hand and examines her palm. Blunt fingernails roll over the palm of Lara's skin. Not so much as a red mark. She purses her lips and looks at Lara. "This is magical," she says. Less quesiton, more statement. "I am familiar with the modern armors, the fluid and gel packs. Nothing I've seen is this thin. It is almost invisible."

She stoops near the water and dips her hand in it as well. A bootknife flickers into her grip and she presses the point into her palm. THe pressure increases to the point that she's grunting with the effort before she gives up, and holds her palm out for Lara to examine.

"Where does this come from, though?"

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara is pacing a bit by the time Silver joins her again and moves to inspect her hand. She lets the other do so to see for herself that not a scratch was even left. "Magic... or a science we don't yet understand." She says softly to the other while she watches her try it on herself. "Either way you shape it, what this certainly is... is a hell of a discovery, to put it lightly."

Croft's words trail off then as she looks up to the open ceiling that had opened to allow sunlight into the chamber, that was something she didn't fully understand why it... had done that. But thats fairly commonplace when you're delving into tombs and crypts, they don't come with instruction manuals after all.

Whatever got her to look up there, she shakes her head and looks back to Silver, then down to the Chrismary pool again. "Generally these sorts of things, aren't this large." She says with a light huff of an exhale. "A Chrismary is a container for anointment oils." Lara looks up to Silver then and she raises her hand to reach out toward Silver's forehead. "The process of blessing someone, and offering them the protection of God's grace."

The archaeologist does the classic forehead, down to collarbone and across gesture. Then she smirks at Silver lightly. "Though generally the oil truly holds no real 'power'." Her eyes drop to the pool and she motions toward it with that same hand. "This... may very well be an origin of the entire process. How it all started." She then points. "There." She says. "There's a drain in the pool, and what looks line an inflow--"

Lara's words are cut off by the sounds of something that might not be expected, something Silver might recognize before Lara even would. Its explosives, high yield hand grenades, being thrown into the room through that open skylight in the roof, one after another!

Silver Sable has posed:
Silver knows the sound of grenades very well. She can even pick them out by the sound they make. Canister grenades, such as gas or a flashbang, *thunk* hollowly. They're full of compressed aerosols and have a peculiar resonance. Frag grenades are heavy, hard, and dense.

*thunk* *thunk* they go as they bounce and Silver catches the sound of the metal spoons detaching and chiming their own sound across the stone works. It's probably what saves their life. Pros would have rolled the grenades in.

Silver grabs Lara close in an ironlike hug. "Move!" she barks, and simply lifts Lara off her feet. Lara's no featherweight. The mercenary Symkarian's stronger than she looks. Lara's flung into the Chrismary and Sable lets the motion pull her along into the shimmering pool.

A mental prayer that this stuff doesn't cause cancer. She doesn't let go of Lara, either, wrapping arms and legs around Lara's torso and hips. Not hugging for comfort, but to ensure that they don't get separated underwater. Cool as a cucumber, too, she digs a portable rebreather out of her belt and presses it to Lara's mouth before the currents sweep them away.

Batman's not the only one who can plan ahead, after all.

Lara Croft has posed:
The thing about mercenary units in situations like this is that they're often reactionary to aggressive actions against their people, lacking any real tact toward potentially valuable archaeological sites, such as this one. The men outside throwing the grenades into the chamber that they've discovered is open... they're not doing it for any other reason but to punish the women who attacked their team. To hell with the 'treasure' -- if they're even aware of one BEING in that open chamber.

Lara had heard their movement outside, subtle on the winds, but it hadn't been enough for her to know what she was hearing until it was too late. Now, she's grasped onto and together she and her partner on this mission go flying into the oily waters of the pool to splash down just seconds before the entire room they were in become a literal hellscape of fire and debris!

Its all visible from beneath the water, the heat is even felt as they splash down beneath the life-saving armor fluid, and as the room they just vacated is literally torn apart by explosives, they're not yet out of the danger by any means!

From the ceiling of that very same room, two large boulders come to join them down inside the pool, spike-like in shape, these rocks splash down into the water as well and slam into the floor of the anointing oil pool, BARELY missing Lara and Silver on either sides of them, pinching them between the spikey rocks.

And this has an effect of its own, the entire base of the pool is ravaged, and the drainage tunnel is ripped open, suddenly sucking all the water (and the two women) into the tunnel that it feeds!

Lara's got the rebreather on, and she's only able to make a split second of eye contact with Silver before she's pulled into the abyss of the drainage tunnel at very high speeds!

Silver Sable has posed:
Silver turns her shoulders ahead of Lara and hangs on like grim death. Ankles hook behind Lara's spine with a rigid hold and she hugs Lara to her, arm wrapped around shoulder and head to streamline their movement. Her silver hair whips around her face like tattered streams as the force of water rips her leather band away from her head.

Lara would feel Silver take at least one big hit, breaking apart a thin rock formation. A few smaller ones crack and distingrate, furthur destabilizing their treaherous voyage. The channel's worn relatively smooth by time, but the inertia of the two women make it a dangerous voyage.

Then Silver *smacks* into something that doesn't yield at all and her body contorts in agony. The leglock breaks and her arms go limp as she's knocked senseless and starts to drift away from Lara through the crashing of the flowing tide.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara is certainly making muffled noises past the rebreather in her mouth as they tumble through the darkness, its a rather unsettling experience after all, having no idea where this ride will take the two of them. She also impacts against the tunnel's edges here and there, and if it weren't for the anointment oils that they're both submerged in she'd probably suffer quite a lot of damage from it too!

Still, when they both slam into that immovable object, Lara loses the rebreather and without she just cries out in sudden pain from the harsh and instant stopping FORCE of it. The oily water rushes past them, she feels Silver get pulled away and she reaches for her, but this isn't just water, its got more to it so its slippery and almost slimey. Lara reaches out for Silver's hand to try to grasp onto it, but she slips her grip down to the other's fingers and then the gate blocking their passage snaps open and the two women are sent into a very clear and obvious free fall, away from the drainage pipe and into a cavern beneath the ground!

There's light in the cavern, across the walls and the floor of it a good 75 feet below them... it looks like a bio luminescent flora lining the rocky shelves and floors of the cave.

When they crash down into the river and pool below, they'll go deep into the water, Lara having to kick and struggle to get back up to the surface. Eventually breaking the top of the sweet scented waters to gasp for breath! "Silver?!" She calls out, without even skipping a beat, as she always fears for the safety of others on these kinds of wild events that her life seems to always lead her to.

Silver Sable has posed:
Talk about prepared. Silver's jumpsuit isn't just thermal gear. It's a sealed wetsuit that keeps water from bogging down her combat boots. The gear she's wearing isn't doing her any favors though and she burbles up to the surface with a rush of flowing water for only a moment or two. The current rolls her twice and then she starts to sink under the waves, her utility vest and backpack sinking her towards an un-plumbed depth. The current disappears underwater and could travel for miles, dooming Silver to a swift death in minutes if she gets caught by the crossing eddies.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara continues to search above the water's surface, but she doesn't see her. So with a deep intake of oxygen she dives back beneath the water's surface and she flips on her light attached to her belt. She starts kicking her feet and swiping her hands in front of her to swim, she can see the other in the dim darkness and makes to move toward her as quickly as she can.

The strange flora that illuminates the cave exists beneath the water as well, creating a wash of dim violet light that pulses brighter and darker in seemingly random patterns that leaves the underground lake an ever shifting light show that a rave might even be jealous of!

Lara's half-gloved hands reaching out for Silver to help her, to try to guide her back up to the surface. She tries to get some of the extra gear off of her as well to make it an easier task... Lara is an experienced swimmer, even with all of her own gear on she's been in situations similar to this many times. She even helped save Asgardians when their ship crashed landed into the middle of the ocean.

Silver Sable has posed:
Silver's a lot of dead weight, wetsuit or not. The backpack goes, then the harness. Only then is she buoyant enough for Lara to haul her to the shore, and it's exhausting work hauling someone through turbulent waters towards a landing of any sort. Survival training includes the proper way to evacuate air from someone's lungs. It's not fun for the person who drowned-- head downhill on a slope, facedown, and suddenly having someone kneeling on your shoulderblades like priming a pump.

Silver abruptly sputters and coughs up a lot of water, flailing her hands behind her. She starts cursing in what sounds like Ukrainian, but more about the situation in general than Lara saving her life. "Gah." She spits the cavewater out and looks around, blearily leveraging herself to roll over and rest her weight on a hipbone. Lara gets a wry look. "Seems I owe you one, Tomb Raider," the Symkarian says. She coughs again and looks for her bag and harness. Silver doesn't need to ask where they are and she doesn't for a second berate Lara for their absence. It's accepted as an operational loss and she's already moving on.

"Where are we now? I lost track of how far we came."

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara definitely didn't want Silver to lose her gear into the depths, but there was no choice when it came to getting her partner out of the water and back to breathable oxygen... this might be life protecting water, but it likely wasn't going to do much when one needed previous air inside their lungs!

When they break the surface of the water, Lara kicks and pulls them both to shore, its a gentle slope up and out of the water and onto a bed of smooth pebbles and stones, river rocks worn smooth by ages of flowing water rushing over them.

As Silver is coming-to, Lara is rising up onto her knees beside her, breathing heavily herself as she'd been at her breaths limits just then. Quickly she shakes her head. "Think nothing of it." The Brit tells the other in response, as she drops back onto her elbows to look upward at where they'd just come from. They're both drenched in the oily water and the dim violet light inside this mysterious cavern glints off of them.

"What... is this place." Lara says in a breathy voice then. She still has her own gear as she'd been traveling lighter than Silver had been. She reaches for her side and within a second she has a glowing golden chemlight activated that bathes them both in its warm illumination. Lara starts to sit up then, holding the chemlight up above her head. "We were in that pipe for at least a kilometer. It wasn't entirely vertical, it felt more of a downward slope... I think we're no more than half a kilometer away from the site above..." She looks over to Silver. "Are you all right?"

Silver Sable has posed:
Silver eyes Lara at the question. "Dignity hurt. Feels like my ass scraped the rocks," she says, accent giving her wry tone a bit more humor. "But I am alive." She heaves to her feet and shakes off the cramps and muscle kinks. Pain's in the mind after all. Gear is chcked and inspected. At least her gunbelt is still on her hips, and the pouches contain a good amount of equipment. She dumps a spare rifle magazine with a toss over her shoulder and resettles the weight on her hips.

A small pocket flashlight is produced and added to Lara's illumination. She grimaces and unzips the neck of her wetsuit and folds the mandarin collar flat against her shoulders and sternum. "Underground cavern system. Some of them, millions of years old. Water flows and then rivers shift and drain and they empty again."

She flickers her light at Lara's feet so she's not blinded by it, and gives her an up and down. Abruptly, Silver snorts a laugh at the urbane aristocrat. "You look like you signed up for oil wrestling night at a cheap bar," she informs Lara. Her light flickers up and down off the sheen of water and oil clinging to Lara's outfit.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara is in the process of standing up to her booted feet's full height as Silver checks over her own gear. She drops her light holding hand down to her side and lets it clip to her belt where it hangs against her right hip then. The last words that Silver speaks draw Lara's eyes back over to the woman and they get a smirk from the Tomb Raider.

"Remind me not to visit any of the bars you're referring to. Even if I'd surely win in such a competition." She quips back to the other woman. She glances down at herself and she releases a light exhale. "I wasn't as properly prepared for an aquatic expedition as you." She notes before looking back to Silver and then past her shoulders to the area behind her.

"Look." Lara points past Silver and sweeps past her as well, moving to the rocky shore's edge again. "There at the center of that small island."

At said center is a single... tree. Its trunk and limbs are a solid black like a starless night sky, but budding on its branches are little pink flowers that grow, and fall to the ground at its roots, as if their entire lifespan was less than a minute.

Lara draws in a breath and just shakes her head softly right to left. "I've never seen anything like this." She finally admits, looking back to her partner in all of this. "I'd say we found the fountain of youth, but I think that would be misguided and... well, Wrong. But we've certainly discovered something along those lines."

Silver Sable has posed:
"I don't know of any posh bars that do oil wrestling," Silver agrees. "But if you ever want to clean house with a friendly better, we can work something out." She falls into step with Lara, moving without undue haste or hurry. Her bantering smile fades to awe at the sight of the black tree. Her light reveals no details of the twisting trunk, the albedo of the little light vanishing as it washes over the twisted burl.

"Is this... does this feed the cistern of the saint?" She looks behind them reflexively, as if she could see their path. "Or did St. Symone do ... this?"

She reaches a gloved hand out to catch a falling blossom in her palm to examine it with a more focused scrutiny.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara just looks over to Silver with a small smirk at that first part, but she lets that comment rest for now as there's a lot going on at once and she's trying to figure it all out.

"I don't know." Lara softly says in response to the part about Symeon before she watches the flower fall into Silver's palm and she too looks at it is shifts itself visibly before their eyes into a wilted husk of itself leaving behind it only a small seed and a fine powdery dust.

"That dust..." Lara says then as she raises her right hand to poke at Silver's palm, her bare fingertip taking up some of it that she then rubs between forefinger and thumb. "The seed..." She looks around the chamber they're in. "The tree is the source of these plants, the leaves are how they've grown."

"I don't think Symeon created this." Lara then says, as she steps across the shore and finds a small stepping pathway to take her toward the tree. She's bathed in the violet let as the leaves fall around her, she scans it all with her eyes and turns back to look at Silver. "I believe he and his people discovered this place, likely as it is now... maybe not quite this overgrown, but..."

Lara crouches amongst the leaves and debris they've left over. She starts to swipe it all away and within moments she fiends, a marker stone. "Shine your light here..." She asks of the other. The marker stone is etched with an inscription. 'Anointed by God, Jesus Christ was given the Holy Spirit to spread the Good News and to free those who have been held captive by sin. After Christ left the Earth he gave to us the gift of the Holy Spirit."

Silver Sable has posed:
Silver obligingly illuminates the marker point for Lara, standing watch over the Brit while she works. Her silver brows lift upwards a minute amount and she shares a look with Lara after the recitation is done.

"Not terribly helpful," she says wryly. "It's a quote from the Bible isn't it? I was not a terribly attentive student at Sunday worship," she admits with a rueful mutter. Her light swings around the area again, trying to get a sense of the size and scope of the area. Her gloved hair pulls her wet hair from her face and then she holds her light in her mouth to tie her hair up and pull it into a simple underfolded braid. It'll be tangled and hurt like hell to un-knot, but at least it's out of her face for the moment. "Where do we go from here? Is there a way up?" She looks to the canopy of the tree, seeking a path away from the area.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara rises back up to her full height. "Luke four eighteen. To be precise." Lara says then. "Though its a condensed version of it, which generally means it was taken from an instructor's bible, rather than a bible given to the public."

Its pretty obvious that the Tomb Raider doesn't yet have all the answers, even including how they're going to get out of here. She turns to look at Silver then. "They're going to invade that room, after the fires are out, they'll find the tunnel we... used... to get down here." Her own hair was already back in a ponytail, but she reaches up to run a hand through it out of reflex after seeing Silver reform her own hair into one.

"We can't let them find this place." Lara says to her. "If they discover what these plants are capable of..." Lara trails off then and shakes her head. "These kinds of things are the very things I've been hired by SHIELD to protect with my life, and ensure they don't fall into the wrong hands. But this is a 'treasure' that I can't take with me to a safe place to seal away in a secure box, far away from 'bad people'."

Silver Sable has posed:
Silver looks around, then shakes her head in frustration. She checks her SIG, shaking the water out of it, and reholsters it smoothly. "Three magazines of 9mm. I won't be exactly helpful if they show up with explosives and rifles. I don't have any of my demolition equipment either. The grenades were in my backpack." She eyes the rippling waters. "I ... have my firestarter equipment," she says, with immense reluctance. "But that seems as much a crime as letting this fall into their hands. /Look/ at it. It absorbs all light. What is it even? A tree? An alien artifact?" She bites her lower lip and looks at Lara. "I love my country, but I think I would remember if the tree of life were planted here."

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara's eyes go to the woman's gun and she watches her as she summarizes their situation. This makes Lara give a weary grin and a slight shake of her head. "Where would we be if we weren't neck deep in some sort've seeming insurmountable situation? Happier, right?" Its possible that she's getting more cynical, or jaded, by the troubles she's experienced in her fairly short life.

Her own handgun is still holstered on her right thigh, but she doesn't reach for it, instead she turns back to the indicated tree and she just stares at it. It is pure darkness and it makes her shake her head as her eyes rise up its trunk to the very tip of the tree's top, then they fall back down to the roots once more.

"I think this is the Treet of Death, more than it is the tree of Life." She then comments, glancing back to Silver. "I hate to say that this is from outer space... its such a terrible thing to ever claim. But I've never heard of anything like this."

Lara steps around the tree then and walks to the edge of the water again with her hands on her hips. She stares off into the cavern's edges and detaches her chemlight. With an underhanded toss she sends it over the water to the edge of the cavern wall where it lands on a set of stairs, illuminating them in the golden light.

"There's the way out and look." She points up to a terrace midway up the stairs. "That looks like controls for the aquifer itself."

Silver Sable has posed:
Silver's flashlight flings a pool of yellow-white illumination quite some distance, and she follows Lara's directions upwards towards the terrace and the aquifer controls beyond. "I am not an engineer," she tells Lara. As if thinking in tandem, she's already moving to meet Lara's path and test the edge of the water. "But I could probably kick at the controls until something discouraging happens. At least enough to deter our friends," she adds, and frowns up at the flow of water pouring into the cavern still. No one's dared the underground tributary (who has a death wise like that, anyay?) but then again, all it takes is a submersible drone or someone experienced in cave diving.

Fifty yards?" she hazards, and re-seals her collar to her throat once again. "Can you make that distance?" She starts wading into the water and rather abruptly drops into it with a hollow *splash*, going under for a second. She bobs to the surface and rolls onto her back to start a doggedly patient backstroke. "Careful, the edge is slippery and quite abrupt," she calls to Lara. With the light source illuminating the stairwell, it's a long swim through very dark and barely-lit waters towards the sole little source of hope they have at the moment.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara isn't far behind Silver, she too drops down into the water with a splash, her gear and clothing is made for water to help keep her body beneath as dry as possible, but her arms are still left bare aside from the fingerless gloves upon her hands.

Once they get across the water to the base of where the controls are, Lara hoists herself back out, shedding the slippery oily fluids onto rock and mud. "Sadly, this looks to be a bridge that they used the water to raise and lower it." She indicates to her employer and friend. As she starts up to the controls, she indicates the old and worn iron wheels upon the central housing. "Here, we'll both turn these." There's conveniently two of the wheels and two of them.

Lara shows Silver a light grin, a confident expression upon her mud smeared face. "I know, this is wildly strange stuff. Believe me, I'm used to it." She says in a moment of levity while she wraps her half gloved hands around the rusted iron grips on the wheel. "Ready when you are." Lara says, moments before she starts to pull on the old wheel, her arm muscles flexing as she starts to work the wheel to do... who knows what yet...

Silver Sable has posed:
Silver pushes her short-cropped hair back from her face. The upshot of the bob cut is that it sheds water fairly effortlessly, though the cavern pool and the remaining oil keeps it firmly plastered against the outline of her skull.

"Is *very* strange, da," Silver agrees with a wry tone. She moves to the other wheel and tests it with a set of her shoulder, then turns to put her back to it and grip the spokes behind her hips and she squats. A good power-lifter move that allows her to use her core strength more efficiently. "This is *normal* for you?" She gives Lara a critically intrigued once-over. "I am curious what 'exceptional' is. Curious and a little scared," she admits.

Threee quick breaths move her belly in and out and on 'three' she grits her teeth and starts pushing hard against the wheel. Centuries of old rust and debris squeal angry protest at the sudden pressure, but from the sound of it the old hawsers and ropes holding the assembly together are at least all working as the wheels start an agonizingly slow turn. "Gods above, had they never heard of *grease* in the fifth century?" she grunts. Rhetorically, anyway.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara has to laugh lightly at Silver's response to her. She pauses in her difficult manipulation of the old iron wheel and gives a little nod to the other across from her. "One great mystery of archaeology is just how very similar societies are with one another, where there's no evidence to suggest that they ever communicated or interacted with on any level what so ever... yet still... things appear between societies that continue to baffle researchers indicating hints that they -were- connected, somehow."

The young British woman then just motions to the wheel before her and she reaches forward to start to turn it again. "This, is just a wheel though. Not entirely remarkable in and of itself." She says with a sly grin.

As the two women work the old mechanical devices, there comes a reward to their efforts. Two old arms peal their way out from the shadowy walls of the cavern and carry with them large metal bowls that swing gently from chains connected to the arms themselves. Each of the arms them guide the metal bowls toward individual spouts of water falling from the cavern's ceiling to the dark pool below and as they come beneath these water spouts they begin to fill up with the the cold liquid from above, subsequently starting to lower as they grow heavier.

"I'm just glad you're here." Lara says, showing another little grin to Silver. "Half the work load for me." She teases then.

All of this, combined, causes a bridge to start to lower down toward them, intending to lower down beside where they standing, giving the women a clear cut way 'out' of here.

Silver Sable has posed:
"You say that now, wait until I bill you my hourly rates," Silver quips back at Lara through strained breaths. But she flashes a tight, fast grin at the archaeologist as she struggles from a low squat to a near-standing position. Subtle lines of muscle in her thighs are visibly working through the clinging wetsuit. There's a last hard *push* and ratchets *click* into place to lock the wheels as the bridge itself drops into position. "I'm going to need massage tomorrow," she mumbles in her thick Symkarian accent.

The silver-haired mercenary claps Lara's shoulder once as they step to the bridge, but it turns into a palm-check to Lara's shoulder to stop her as Silver examines it.

"It looks ... well, not good," she tells Lara. "I'm the heavier of us, I think. You go first. If you break it, we'll..." she looks around, pursing her lips. Her gaze falls on Lara, and the expression turns to a shrug of wry resignation. "Improvise, I suppose?" Shoulders move in an asymmetrical shrug.

Lara Croft has posed:
With the large metal bowls filled with water, they've settled into their default positions now, the bridge is lowered, and now the water pouring into them is breaching the edge of the bowls spilling back out, and it would seem no small amount of that strange mysterious glowing dust had been inside the bowls, because its in the water pouring down into the dark lake, making the water glow a pinkish purple hue.

Lara looks over to Silver when she feels the hand on her shoulder, she shows a slight grin to the other woman. "So we're each other employers now?" She asks her. "I guess that means we're canceling out each other's profits and walking away from this with a large check with 'Zero' written down upon them." She jests, even using her right half gloved hand to write a 'Zero' out in the air as though she were holding a phantom pen.

"I'll go first." Lara says, conceding to these arrangements. She looks away from Silver and back toward the bridge before them, it has rope railings and large wooden 'steps' that will let one walk up it, to ascend to the stone archway above.

The experienced explorer gets about half way up it before she turns around. "Looks to be safe still. But I'd keep your steps to the sides, not in the center of the logs--"

GUNFIRE! Three gun shots echo through the cavern, and land against the rocks around them, narrowly missing them both.

Up in the metal pipes that Lara and Silver had originally poured out of, men with automatic weapons--flashlights attached to the barrels--are gathering up to peer down into the cavern.

"Sable!" A man shouts. "Croft!" He adds. "You've given us quite the treat today!"

He looks back to his men and tips his head. They all raise their guns up and start to draw aim on the two women!

Silver Sable has posed:
Silver Sablinova is a hell of a shot.

That's something that gets bragged on by people who shoot at tiny targets on controlled ranges. But with oil-slicked palms, a faceful of water, in a strange environment shooting at men crouched in a tube fifty yards away? Making that kind of a shot, that's where it goes from being 'practiced' to being truly skilled.

Silver whips out her SIG and hits the first one four times. Most of them had to ditch their body armor to get into the water.

"Run!" Silver barks, and breaks into a sprint across the bridge towards Lara. She comes up sharply with that incredibly bright, far-focused flashlight in her hand. It helps blind their adversaries who are coming out of the blackness of the underground tunnel and throw their aim off. The bridge rattles dangerously under their combined weight and the breakneck speed of Silver's boots on the old, water-logged timber.

Lara Croft has posed:
Silver's a good shot even with all the troubles that the two woman have faced today on this wild ride exploring the mysteries beneath these ancient ruins. She downs at least one of the gunmen pursuing them while the others are forced to move and try to find cover. Some of them elect to leap OUT of the pipe work and down into the black lake where their bodies start to splash with each impact.

More gunfire goes off as Lara turns and starts to ascend the bridge at a fast pace. Once she reaches the top of the bridge she ducks behind a stone pillar and reaches for her climbing axe. She pulls it up and looks to Silver, then darts past her toward one of the metal arms holding the water bowl that was spilling the glowing liquid out of its interior.

"Cover me!" Lara calls out, as she leaps off of the top of the bridge and onto the metal arm. While dangling from it now, given only a little bit of cover from the gunfire, Croft starts to hack at the supports of the chains holding the metal bowl. Axe swing after axe swing, bright yellow sparks flaring to life in the dim lighting of the cavern.

One by one, Lara starts to detach the chains! But they're both still being fired at by a couple men in the pipes, as the others are swimming to the small island with the mysterious tree on it!

Silver Sable has posed:
"Quickly!" Silver snaps at Lara. It's a tone of frustration, not impatience, and she finds a good outcropping of cover to shoot from. Arms thusly braced and well protected from counterfire, she creates a formidable delay for the attack team. One man still in his body armor promptly sinks into the depths of the lake, leaving only a bubbling cry in his wake. Others were smarter and ditched enough gear to make the swim.

A magazine is ejected and steel clatters against stone. It skips off the rocks and *plonks* into the water. In a fluid motion Silver's already got another magazine loaded, not missing a beat as she hammers lead with total disregard for conservation of ammo. The combination of a spreading team means she has to take more time with her shots and can't blind them all with her flashlight.

A bullet skips off the rocks near her temple and she reflexively throws herself behind cover. "Schisse!" she curses in German, and touches the blooddrops from the spalling rock. It's an interruption of half a beat and she throws herself back into the line of fire again to keep Lara from being too easy of a target.

"Last magazine, Croft! Do it fast!" she barks at Lara, and slaps her third and final fifteen rounds home into the gun.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara's intention was pretty clear, to by them as much time as they could get to get out of this place. She's well aware of the chaos going on around her as she continues to hack at the old rusted chains holding the large bowl up, thankfully the weight of the water inside the bowl is helping her sever the metal links and once she's got one gone, the start is drawing/being deflected from above in a wah that gives them a little bit of cover from the gunmen!

"I've got it!" Lara shouts as she takes one more swipe on the second chain, it snaps and with it the 3rd can't handle the weight alone and the bowl falls toward the rocks where it collides with a loud metal clang, before rolling toward the water of the black lake with a big splash!

With the bowl gone, the metal arm is now swinging loosely with Lara hanging from it, and the bridge is starting to raise back up with only one arm to keep it down remaining.

Lara swings on this old contraption, her legs dangling as she raises them up to lift them OVER the bridge while it comes up, then she drops and lands on the bridge, rolling down it toward where Silver is located, rolling on her sides until she comes to a stop.

The men down below are shouting and still shooting, while their leader? He's more enthralled by the tree itself and is inspecting it while his men either kill or chase off the two women. "Get them, you fools!" He does shout at his people though.

Lara is working to get back onto her feet. "Should slow them down, if nothing else!"

Silver Sable has posed:
Silver hits Lara from behind again with a hand jammed under her armpit and her arm braced against Lara's shoulderblades. It's not a pleasant embrace, but one borne of necessity. Silver hauls Lara to her feet and then propels the archaeologist along ahead of her, physically interdicting her silver-clad self between Lara and the shooters. Bullets spang off the walls but aside from stinging spall, neither is hit.

They get around the corner and Silver checks her magazine. Gun empty, slide locked. "Damn," she hisses. The empty magazine is put back into the gun and she holsters it. Who knows, maybe there's a cache of handgun ammo improbably stored in the crypt or something?

"Well, they can't chase us anymore," she tells Lara. Hands rest on her thighs as she tries to gulp down air and slow her breathing. "So I call that, positive gains, da?" She straightens and rests her hand on her low back. A little red mars her cheek from the fragmented bullets. She moves to Lara and turns her left and right, quickly and efficiently patting at her clothing. "No wounds, no bullets?" she demands. "I mean, no *new* ones," she amends. Even with their wetsuits, the two women are a little beat up looking.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara is on her feet quickly and swiftly with the friend of her companion on this adventure. She soflty thanks her, breathlessly, and glances back at the bridge as it was only half way raised up, due to the other bowl of draining water still being in operation, keeping the bridge from fully raising back into its place.

"Its better than nothing." Lara says as she can hear the men shouting down below beyond said bridge. She looks back to Silver and shows her a quick smirk before she draws her own handgun from her holster and then offers it to Silver. "Here." She says. "You're a better shot than me, I think."

With that said, Lara starts forward toward the dark corridor ahead of them. "There's more stairs." She says. "Not sure where they lead, I guess we'll find out though." She looks back to Silver then and shakes her head. "No more wounds, not yet at least. Luck is on our side so far."

Silver Sable has posed:
Silver trades guns with Lara readily enough, checking to ensure Lara's firearm will work for her. She seems like the sort of person who has 'familiarity with all sidearms' written in a dossiere file somewhere. Lara's given a quick nod. "Nice gun. German, da? Heckler and Koch?" She pronounces it properly, too. "You should come by our armory before you leave the country. I'll buy you something new and shiny," she tells her with a wry expression.

It's held in a competent two-handed grip and they move down the hallway. Silver's light is dimmed to a more modest tone to illuminate the tunnel, and she pauses and touches Lara's arm halfway down it. "Feel that? Fresh moving air," she whispers, and uplifts her chin. "We must be near the exit."

Lara Croft has posed:
As they're moving, Lara listens while looking around and trying to decipher the whole of where they are and where they're going. "Here." She quietly says, guiding them onward. The tunnel that they're going through wasn't a cavern tunnel by any means, it had been fully developed like the interior of a temple itself. Carved walls, marble statues set inside of alcoves specifically designed for them... its a hell of a setup and its clear that this place was a holy treasure to the people who designed all of this.

Lara lightly laughs at Silver's gun talk. "I'll admit." She says. "I've a bit of an interest in them, started after my first lesson with my mentor, Roth. The rush of firing a gun was..." She glances over to Silver then. "Well I liked it." And then she turns then and nods ahead. "This stairwell here."

She can feel the air flow as well and as they ascend she looks back to the woman. "They'll likely be just a few minutes behind us." She warns her. "We'll need to hide, or... I don't know. We'll figure it out."

At the top of the steps the two women emerge into a burial chamber. There are stone sarcophagus' lining the walls and floors. Lara steps between them and starts to eye them with a handheld light in her right, her axe still in her left. "There's so much to go over here..."

At the far end of the room is a gate, and more stairs, with a bit of daylight showing... their way out.

Silver Sable has posed:
"Da, but they're on wrong side of border," Silver tells Lara. Her smirk's positively devilish. "And *I* have friends who are much closer."

She pulls the radio from her vest and then from another pocket adds some attachment to the antenneae. Some kind of military scrambler? There's a *beep*, a tone, and then she depresses the talk button to start speaking in Skymkarian. The words "Colonel Sablionva" and "Latveria" are discerable, as is a reference ot distance and GPS coordinates. An affirmative is sent back to Silver, and she closes the channel to hang the radio on her vest again.

"How is it the Americans say? 'The cavalry's a-comin'," she says, with a slow and heavily affected drawl. "Come, we'll have my people here in minutes and there is a Militia force en route as well. We will have these ruins sealed off for now and by the time Doom can object, it will be a matter of possession being nine-tenths of law." She helps Lara set the axe against the gate and they break open the last barrier to their path to freedom.

Lara Croft has posed:
While Silver places her call, Lara is moving toward a large metal gate that is leaning against a wall, its not attached to anything, it looks like it was stored down in this tomb for some unknown reason and as Silver calls in for aide, Lara starts to push it along the wall, it slowly inches its way down toward the passageway that they entered from the stairwell until she has it blocking it... just a little added barricade from those men down in the depths of the cavern.

"Good." Lara says to Silver then with a slight smile before walking toward the main gate now... its locked of course. Lara exhales. "One moment." She lines her axe up and SLAMS it into the gate's locking mechanism! Not very archaeologically kind... but she'd rather live to tell their tale, then not tell it at all.

With feet planted, Lara pries on the lock with her axe until the door finally pops open and she drops down to one knee from the sudden absence of resistance. She's exhausted, Silver can likely see that in the woman, but she rises back up to her feet anyway, not wishing to stop yet.

"Lets go." Lara then says back to the pale haired woman who'd hired her to come here.